Life Satisfaction, Participation, and Vote Choice: Happiness as an Independent Variable.

Do happier people participate more? Controlling for a variety of determinants, whichcandidates do happier people tend to support when they do participate? The literature on turnoutand vote choice in the American context is one of the most theoretically and methodologicallyrich in political science. Observable, or easily measurable, traits like education, income, partyidentification, and race have all been shown to bear heavily on the decision to turn out andsubsequent vote choice. Latent attitudinal characteristics, including levels of interpersonal trustand internal efficacy, have also been incorporated into individual-level models of politicalbehavior. Yet within the voting behavior literature generally, and within studies that considerlatent attitudinal traits more specifically, very little research has sought to incorporate subjectivelife satisfaction into models of turnout and vote choice. This may be due largely to the nearlyexclusive study of life satisfaction as a dependent variable - i.e., to this point political scientists,economists, and sociologists have concentrated on how institutional performance and otherpolitical arrangements bear on individuals' life satisfaction, or happiness. By turning tohappiness as an independent variable, we hope to add nuance to the literatures on both votingand life satisfaction. We find that individuals who are more satisfied with their lives are morelikely to participate politically, and in the 2000 election were more likely to vote for George W.Bush for President, controlling for a variety of intervening factors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]